Spindrift Travels

Our mindset in recent weeks has been on getting the boat ready for the crossing.  Sue's focus has been on provisioning. She has been meal planning, shopping, cooking and stowing all of the prepared meals and food in our small freezer, fridge and pantry. None of these are easy tasks. She can't drive to the store but instead walks with a fold up wagon for loading up groceries, and when she gets there she is never sure what she will find. Rolling counter tops and a swinging oven make cooking a challenge and then stowing it all requires special engineering.

My focus has been on the getting the boat ready. There is always work to do on a boat. I spend time either fixing what broke or doing regular maintenance. The maintenance list includes r...

We departed Gorda Sound at 5:15 with enough daylight to clear the reefs between Necker and Eustatia Islands on the eastern end of Virgin Gorda. The reason for doing the passage at night was so that we would arrive at Saba Island during daylight.  The easterly trade winds were blowing a little north of east allowing us to sail rather than motor to Saba. We had reefs in both our main and genoa and still our speed would put us in Saba before sunrise. It was fast but not comfortable sailing conditions. The waves were large enough to occasionally break over our dodger and as we approached Saba the sea state became confused with waves reflecting off of the island.

The first time we had a diesel leak was on our passage from NYC to Portsmouth, VA....

Most of you can tell that Susan has  been doing all of the writing and most of the photography. The reason for that is simple, she is better at both.  Accepting these facts,  I will just add some thoughts from my perspective.

We chose a good boat for this adventure. Spindrift is a safe, comfortable and surprisingly fast vessel. I spent most of the summer getting her ready for the journey. My friends at Obersheimers Sailor Supply and RCR Yachts were a great help. We replaced the older Raymarine electronics with new plotters, transducers, radar, autopilot and AIS from B&G and installed a new Icom VHF, we replaced running rigging and we installed air conditioning. Sue and I debated getting the air conditioning. She was really opposed...